Chapter 2: The Overbearing Presence of the Arlong Pirates

As expected.

When Noki Gao and Nami woke up and couldn’t find their beloved possessions, they were both anxious and upset, bursting into tears like little crying dolls.

Xano, filled with righteous indignation, joined Belmel in fiercely scolding the unscrupulous thief. What kind of scum steals even children’s belongings? They were worse than beasts!

Soon after, they went out to the market and bought a bunch of new hair clips and several new headbands. After coaxing and persuading the two little ones for quite some time, they finally managed to bring smiles back to their faces.

After all this fuss, combined with some subsequent experiments for comparison, Xano finally understood the logic behind the Sacrifice System’s judgment.

1. The offering must be something closely connected to a manga character, and its value correlates positively with the closeness of that connection.

For example, Nami’s treasured orange flower hair clip is worth far more than a smelly sock she has discarded.

2. The value also positively correlates with the strength of the person the offering comes from and the importance of their character in the manga.

It’s natural that items emotionally tied to powerful characters are harder to obtain and thus more valuable. As for character importance, it’s easy to understand—items obtained from Nami rank higher because she is the lead female protagonist, while Noki Gao is merely a peripheral character, and Belmel exists only in memories.

To confirm this, Xano took advantage of Uncle Ajian’s nap and sent his subordinate, the little thief cat Nami, to steal the small pinwheel from his head, earning a mere 10 points.

Well, even a mosquito is meat. Though the value was low, there was no helping it since most manga readers don’t even remember who that person is.

3. Offerings from the same source cannot be sacrificed again until a year has passed.

In other words, there is a cooldown period for “harvesting wool,” and it’s quite long, so one cannot greedily exploit a fat sheep repeatedly.

Looking at his remaining 25 points, Xano sighed sorrowfully. This rule was the reason he was currently so poor.

If not for this restriction...

A 100 Beli hair clip could be exchanged for 300 points. Given a few years of quiet growth, who knew how strong he could be when he set sail as an adult? Xano didn’t even dare to imagine.

He also wondered whether the combined power of the Navy’s three admirals could withstand one of his punches.

“What are you daydreaming about?” Belmel waved her hand in front of him, breaking his reverie. “You’ve changed clothes, so why not hurry up and eat? After working all afternoon, aren’t you hungry?”

Indeed, eating was the priority.

…

In the warm glow of the kitchen, the rich aroma of meat filled the air.

The two little gluttons had already eaten heartily, but their small mouths and stomachs meant that the table still looked full, as if untouched.

Upon entering, Noki Gao immediately pretended to be a refined lady, sipping her corn chowder delicately, while Nami was still focused on cracking the caramelized crust of her pudding.

But as soon as Xano sat down, clapped his hands, and said, “I’ll start now,” the scene changed abruptly.

Honey-glazed ribs disappeared at a rate of one piece every three seconds; the steamed fish was reduced to bones in the blink of an eye. Mashed potatoes mixed with rice and garlic bread, the staples, vanished in seconds, as if swallowed by an endless black hole.

The number of empty plates quickly increased until they piled up like a small mountain.

Any outsider witnessing this would be dumbfounded.

But this family was used to it.

About a year or two ago, Xano had begun to grow rapidly, and his appetite had increased day by day.

—It’s normal for boys entering puberty to eat more than girls, especially when doing physical labor every day!

Belmel rested her elbow on her cheek, smiling warmly as she watched Xano feast.

She often wondered if she had saved the East Sea in a past life to be gifted such adorable little angels, especially Xano—steady, sensible, diligent, and reliable.

If he were truly an angel, he would probably be the most beloved in heaven.

Speaking of which,

Although she had served as a marine for several years and possessed physical strength superior to ordinary people, supporting such a large family singlehandedly was still a strenuous task.

For a long time, the childhood of the three children had been quite impoverished.

At one point, Nami could only wear her older sister’s hand-me-down clothes, which often made Belmel feel guilty and remorseful until Xano grew into the family’s main breadwinner and life gradually improved.

Especially in the past two years’ harvest seasons, Xano could usually finish harvesting the entire orange orchard within a week, whereas before, it would have taken a full month.

Finishing the harvest and sorting early meant that when the first cargo ship arrived, they could sell everything at once, fetching a slightly higher price than later sales.

Thus, through this virtuous cycle over the years, the family’s income steadily increased.

Belmel counted on her fingers and figured that after selling this year’s crop of oranges, the money she saved would surpass 300,000 Beli!

Wow, could childhood dreams really come true? Who would have guessed a few years ago that she might one day become a millionaire!

“Was this delivered today?” This time it was Xano’s voice breaking her pleasant daydream.

***

“Eh?”

Belmel snapped back to reality and saw that Xano had already finished eating and was now holding a newspaper laid at the corner of the table.

“Yes, the news bird only just came at noon,” Belmel complained. “I don’t know what the World Economic News Agency is up to, but they’ve raised the price again. Last week it was 40 Beli; now it’s 50 per copy. When I was your age, it was only 20 Beli a copy…”

She had never been in the habit of daily newspaper subscriptions before, nor could she afford it. Only in the past couple of years, after their fortunes improved, did she start subscribing at Xano’s strong insistence, and he read it carefully every day.

Belmel couldn’t understand why her adopted son was so interested in the newspaper, feeling that those major events at sea were far removed from their rural orange farming life.

Her nagging went in one ear and out the other as Xano murmured in agreement and skimmed through the pages.

—After a few lines, his eyes were instantly drawn to a headline below the front page:

“Agreement Reached! Jinbei, Captain of the Sun Pirates, Officially Joins the New Seven Warlords of the Sea!”

Beside it was a photo showing a calm blue-skinned fish-man wearing a yukata and wooden clogs, flanked by several Navy officers, gazing steadily into the camera.

Xano stared at the picture for a long time without looking away.

His hand clenched the edge of the newspaper tightly without realizing it.

“Are they coming…” he murmured lowly.

“What?” Belmel tilted her head in confusion.

“Nothing,” Xano shook his head slightly and quickly flipped through the rest of the pages.

After confirming there was no other noteworthy information, he glanced out the window, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

“The rain seems to have stopped. I’ll go practice swordsmanship in the orchard for a while. If it gets late, you all go to bed first. Don’t wait for me.”

He smiled, grabbed the wooden sword from the corner, and stepped out, leaving a shrinking silhouette seen through the glass window.

“Hmm…”

Belmel withdrew her gaze and pinched her chin thoughtfully.

She was never particularly intuitive, often called an empty-headed rascal by the elders back home.

But after so many years living together, she knew Xano very well and always felt that his reaction now meant he was hiding something from her.

Suddenly, she vaguely recalled that when he was ten, one afternoon during a nap, he seemed to have a long and vivid nightmare.

He woke up suddenly, drenched in sweat, and told her that in the future, a group of fearsome pirates with terrifying faces would come to occupy this island.

He urged her to move early, far away, to another island to start life anew.

Of course, that was impossible—this was her homeland. No one would move just because of a child’s inexplicable nightmare.

Besides, the 16th East Sea Marine Branch where she once served was very close by.

If any pirates really came, wouldn’t the marines there intervene?

Belmel had laughed and comforted him for a long time until the child calmed down.

Since then, his temperament grew steadier day by day, and he never mentioned moving again. Time passed, and he gradually became the family’s pillar.

All along,

She thought Xano had simply matured early due to his difficult upbringing, which made her feel relieved.

Could it be…

That nightmare had a far fiercer impact than she realized and was still ongoing?

————

“Ha!”

On the chilly autumn-to-winter night, the temperature had dropped to around freezing, and the breath from his nose was visible.

Xano jogged around the orange orchard more than ten laps, digesting dinner and warming up.

Then he moved to an open area, removed his clothes, revealing a strong chest.

He settled into a stable stance, placed the wooden sword aside, and began practicing the Breathing Fist technique.

This technique was purchased in the trade market last year after saving up 800 points—a substantial sum.

Its core seemed related to the breathing methods from the world of Demon Slayer but was distinctly different.

At the edge of the orange grove was a deliberately cleared circular space.

Nine thick wooden stakes were embedded in the ground, arranged in a formation with varying heights and distances, bound tightly with iron hoops at both ends.

This setup was crafted by a village carpenter per Xano’s request, using old, discarded varieties of citrus trees from last year.

If not for the graffiti Nami had drawn all over each stake—clouds, moons, little rabbits—it might have looked more like a grandmaster’s dojo.

Inside the stake formation was half a basket of oranges.

Most were worm-eaten or rotten, culled during recent harvests.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Three rotten oranges were tossed into the air. At the moment they hit the ground, the black-haired boy sprang into action.

His right foot stomped on the wood grain of a stake; his waist and hips twisted with a whoosh; his elbow struck the first falling fruit precisely.

The airflow generated by the seventh form of the Breathing Fist surged wildly beneath his skin, causing the orange to burst neatly into eight segments.

Before any juice splashed onto his eyelashes, his left knee crushed the seed sac of the second orange.

When the third orange was still thirty centimeters from the ground, Xano suddenly halted. His right foot, which had been inches from breaking the peel, firmly planted on the ground.

Drip.

A bead of sweat fell from his jaw onto the dry leaves, vaporizing in a wisp of steam.

Suddenly relaxing after pushing his muscles to their limit, repeatedly forging his capillaries—this was the secret recorded in the Breathing Fist manual.

Xano didn’t stop and picked three more oranges from the nearby basket, repeating the process over and over.

Only when the basket was nearly empty did he finally pause and wash his face at the water tap.

Splash—

Kicking the empty basket aside, the black-haired boy, after a brief rest, turned his attention to several orange trees nearby.

These were varieties Belmel had purchased in earlier years; their yield and fruit quality were far inferior to later plantings.

They would be discarded after this winter.

Just like some lowly fish-men who deserved to be torn to shreds!

Breathing Fist, eighth form!

“Ha!”

Xano let out a low roar. The moment his left foot crushed dried leaves beneath it, his right fist arced down like a seagull dive, striking the tree trunk.

The knuckles cracked crisply, like roasted beans.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

One punch after another came like a raging storm. Where his fists hit the trunk, the bark gradually turned iron-gray.

This color indicated the Breathing Fist’s stimulation of subcutaneous tissue hardening, somewhat akin to the effect of Armament Haki.

But the coverage was limited and the intensity inferior, currently only a low-grade version.

After completing the entire set, a faint “crack” sounded from the center of the orange tree, but the exterior bore only several knuckle-deep impressions.

Continue!

After a brief rest of only a few seconds, the old orange tree groaned in pain again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The dull, urgent pounding echoed continuously through the quiet night orchard.

“One thousand nine hundred ninety-six, one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven… two thousand!”

Stop!

Xano stepped back, settled his stance, and exhaled deeply.

White breath wisps rose almost invisibly from his shoulders and head, vanishing into the night.

From his shoulders down, his torso trembled violently, subsiding gradually after several seconds.

Every muscle throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat, pores exhaling waves of heat that steamed the frost clinging to twigs and leaves at his feet into swirling vortices.

“Progress is quite good!”

Feeling the clear strength emerging despite extreme fatigue and weakness, Xano twisted his neck as if reborn and couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction.

He had to admit, he truly had some talent for physical training.

He had been practicing Breathing Fist for a year and a half.

From a clumsy beginner to now increasingly skilled, his progress had accelerated dramatically.

It took him a full year to enter the basics, then more than three months until late summer to early autumn to reach a modest level.

And now, before winter had fully arrived, he already sensed the barrier of breaking through limits.

At this rate,

He was confident that with about ten more days of hard training, he would master the entire fist technique.